


Leave that Painful Memory in the Garden

by Yotsubadancesintherain5



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 00:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18927931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yotsubadancesintherain5/pseuds/Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: Rose loved them both but that didn't make her loss any easier.





	Leave that Painful Memory in the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> A small exploration of how Rose and Pearl couldn't save everyone, and all the bunched-up sadness that comes with that.

Pearl had heard, of course. Pink Diamond had disobeyed one too many times, her Pearl was broken, defective, was taken away, and Pink Diamond was lesser.

Until Pearl came along, and it was the downfall for the Diamonds, because the first idea of breaking away was planted, and there was the revelation that the planets was filled to the brim with life.

It was moments like that that she could keep safe within herself, when Pink Diamond became _Rose_ and Pearl lost herself in the bramble patch, trying to keep her words withheld and needing them to spill out because it felt like she would burst with the magnitude of them.

Now it was too difficult to break the silence. It seemed like keeping quiet would withhold any of the horrible feelings that came with a moment such as this.

“Were you the one that replaced me after I… broke?” Pink Pearl asked, her voice shaking near the end.

“I,” Pearl started and she fumbled. “There isn’t…”

She had to bite her tongue and take in a breath, packing her thoughts into something palatable.

“There isn’t a nice way to say it,” Pearl said. “I did, and I’m sorry.”

An apology for being there for Pink Diamond? An apology for the both of them leaving Homeworld for a better world and leaving Pink Pearl all alone here, without her mind or will? Or an apology for not protesting enough when Rose made her own path?

There was so much to explain and the scale of it was too much to face alone.

The response left Pink Pearl hunching up her shoulders and her hands enclosed each other tightly.

“Did she love you, too?”

“Rose loved everybody,” it was automatic, but it wasn’t the right thing to say and if it squirmed out of Pearl’s mouth it would mean, “You weren’t at all special.”

Even if that love was infinite, with both of their statuses before them – you are a Diamond’s closest confidant, you know everything she does, you are an extension of her – Pearl wondered if the one she replaced thought the same self-deprecating, invasive words, “You had more love to give to me, what did I do wrong for you to withhold it?”

But it was never good to put all that need for love in one basket that it would be full to bursting and all that pain that came with expecting goodness from one person was going to be crushing.

This was something to be told when it was easier to understand. Pearl had to honest with what Rose thought of her. Pearl knew the truth of what Rose thought of her Pink Pearl. It was something that Pink Pearl had to know, because she hadn’t heard it in so _long_.

“Yes,” Pearl answered, “But, I _know_ that she loved you.”

Pink Pearl said nothing in return but there was a smile, small and lovely.  

In time, Pearl could help her new friend find love in others.


End file.
